The final six candidates on The Apprentice took on the bizarre world of healthy snacks in this week’s task. As disastrous tasks go, this was a pretty good one.
Last week on The Apprentice was a financial onslaught, with millions of pounds changing hands as the teams sold high-end property in London. The more humble end of the business spectrum was the focus again for this task, which saw one more candidate leave the process, establishing the final five. They were asked to develop, brand and pitch a healthy snack product for sale to the mass market.
Charleine, despite a lack of relevant experience, put herself forward to become the project manager for Versatile. Brett did the same over at Connexus, with Richard expressing some half-hearted hopes for leadership before asking to work alone on the branding and marketing side of the task. Charleine, meanwhile, threw herself into the product development and sent Gary and Joseph off to oversee the branding. This led to a series of depressingly amusing scenes in which Charleine randomly tossed ingredients – some of which were superfoods – into a bowl in an attempt to make a cereal bar of sorts.
Brett and Vana opted to produce vegetable-based crisps. Vana took charge of the process, with Brett sitting back despite his management role, overseeing the creation of “raw” crisps – made with dehydration rather than frying. Everything seemed to be going well until, at the last minute, Vana decided to dump an industrial quantity of olive oil into the product for reasons known only to herself. On the other side of town, Richard’s branding expertise seemed to stretch precisely as far as putting an enormous “V” on the front of a bag and writing the word “vegetable” near it. It wasn’t especially impressive.
It was, however, more impressive than what was going on at Team Versatile. Charleine barked a series of miscellaneous ingredient names at the boys and they duly put a couple of random words on the packaging. Even those random words, though, needed to be redacted the next day when a nutritionist’s report informed them that Charleine hadn’t actually put enough of the superfood ingredients into the bars to justify the claims their packaging made. Oops!
The next day, the teams were sent off to retailers to pitch their products. Connexus’ pitches were entirely derailed by the fact that every potential stockist had to spend several minutes discovering the molecules of crisp lurking amongst the enormous bags of oil they had been given. Their bungled answers to questions didn’t help either. Versatile’s pitches, led by Charleine and company man Gary, were slightly better, but the unmitigated awfulness of their crumbly, largely unhealthy product meant that they never stood a chance.
In a boardroom first, neither team was able to secure a single order from any of the retailers to whom they pitched their products. This baffled and infuriated Lord Sugar, who didn’t really seem to have much of a clue how this revelation impacted the format of the show. He asked each of the two project managers to pick a team member to face the final boardroom. Brett opted to bring back Richard for his ducking and diving approach, whilst Charleine gave Joseph a reprieve at Gary’s expense. A passionate defense of her business credibility by Charleine rescued her chances in the process, with weak leader Brett facing the wrath of Lord Sugar for failing to control his team.
The final five candidates to become Lord Sugar’s business partner have now been selected and The Apprentice is entering its final stretch, after another boardroom first in the shape of the complete failure of both teams. Charleine has emerged from nowhere to be a real contender in the series, but it still looks like a straight fight between Vana and the newly christened ‘Tricky Dicky’ for the ultimate crown.
Next up, it’s the consistently entertaining interviews, which are always a series highlight. The teaser trailer suggested chaos for Richard, which can only be a good thing given his villainous turn in this task.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=WWU57JuvPl0
Originally published December 13, 2015. Updated April 15, 2018.
